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A Tale of Two Medical Interventions

As uproars go, this wasn't much.

A 15-year-old mentally disabled foster kid suffering from advanced liver disease was removed from the waiting list for a new liver. Shands Hospital administrators in Gainesville decided the state foster system could not provide the proper after care. So the kid was given what amounted to a death sentence.

It was an outrageous decision. Without the outrage.

The very region of Florida that went fairly berserk over the decision to remove Terri Schiavo from live support in 2005 seemed unconcerned by the fate of this particular kid, the cast-off child of a coke addict. The Jesus-quoting, Bible-waving bunch had charged the courts with judicial murder when, after years of litigation, it was decided that a woman could be removed from life support. Her brain stem had liquefied. She was in a persistent vegetative state. She was essentially brain dead.

The pro-lifer crusaders, who rallied legislative support in Tallahassee and Washington in an extraordinary attempt to reverse a decision by Schiavo's husband to remove her from life support, haven't raised a peep for a liver diseased child. Apparently no scripture prohibits providing such lousy care for foster kids that they aren't worth saving. Of course, no public official will actually kill this child. We're just going to let his diseased liver do the job. Nope. Nothing in the Bible about transplanting livers. Must be okay.

It was notable that it was godless South Florida that came to this child's rescue. Jackson Memorial Hospital offered to take over the kid's medical care. And the local foster care system found a suitable place for him to recover, if he receives a liver.

No one involved in a re-newed effort to save the boy's life quoted the Bible. Amen.

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Unfortunately, it's a double edged sword.
You're absolutely correct. The religious right should have been up at arms about this. There is, after all, enough scripture to quote on the plight of the poor and those unable to defend their lives.

On the other hand, I can't think of an atheist or agnostic organization that's raised the kind of stink you want on this or any other story like this one. Moreover, there isn't a rational argument they could offer to support the notion that this foster should not have been left to die.
Survival of the fittest, right? If we're not intelligenly designed and the result of pure chance then what's the difference between this child and the drumstick in a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken? None, really.

So, the bible thumpers and non peer reviewed Intelligent Design advocates you rightly criticize have the only rational means by which to defend the life of the child.